A Witch In Winter

by Ruth Warburton

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Anna’s received the black spot,’ Emmaline said, still tapping.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Brereton at school is one of the Ealdwitan,’ I said miserably, ‘and he’s trying to groom me. Or something.’

  I repeated the conversation for the second time. Maya sat down heavily and put her hand to her head.

  ‘I knew I should have listened to the bees, if only that blasted woman had bought her herbs a bit quicker. Well. What are you going to say?’

  t c"#00000I don’t know. That’s why I came here.’

  ‘What do you think they want with her, Ma?’ Emmaline asked. ‘Is it her power?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Maya looked worried. ‘It could be but somehow … I don’t know. I doubt it could be only that – it’s a bit too crude for the way they normally work. They’ve got power enough of their own. Perhaps something in your background, Anna?’

  ‘But what?’ I asked desperately. Maya only spread her hands in mute sympathy. I put my head in my own hands and groaned. ‘They want an answer on Monday. What am I going to say?’

  ‘We can’t tell you, Anna.’ Her face was full of sympathetic concern. ‘I wish I had the answers but I don’t. There’s a lot about the Ealdwitan that isn’t pretty – all the spying and closed ranks and secrecy. But you can’t police a community like ours without doing some unpleasant things – many would say they’re just doing a difficult job in difficult circumstances. All I know is I’d rather be under their radar and, failing that, I’d prefer to be on their good side. It’s very cold being on the wrong side of the Ealdwitan.’

  ‘She wants to talk to Abe.’ Emmaline closed her phone. Maya looked thoughtful.

  ‘It’s not a bad idea. Just remember, Anna, he’s got his own agenda.’

  Emmaline’s phone bleeped and she glanced down.

  ‘He’s coming.’ She sounded surprised.

  It was nearly seven when Abe finally turned up. Maya was cooking supper, Emmaline was chopping salad, and I was looking at my watch worrying about Dad. Then we heard the door downstairs slam and someone shouted up from the foot of the stairs, ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘Hi Abe,’ Maya called down. There were feet on the stairs and Abe’s hand came round the door and rapped on the wood.

  ‘Knock, knock.’

  ‘Come in, you fool,’ Emmaline grumbled.

  ‘Hello, my second favourite sister-in-law. Hello Maya, Anna.’

  ‘Can you stop for supper?’ Maya asked. Abe shook his head.

  ‘No, sorry. I’m just passing through. I only came by to give Anna the benefit of my jaundiced opinion en route.’

  ‘Are you staying, Anna?’ Maya paused with a fistful of spaghetti over the pot.

  I shook my head.

  ‘No, I’d love t { Iad.o but Dad’ll have made supper. I’m already late.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Abe said. ‘I’ll drop you. It’s not out of my way and we can talk on the way. Are you ready to leave?’

  I nodded. ‘Thanks for all the advice, Maya. See you Monday, Emmaline.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Maya.

  ‘And good luck,’ Emmaline added drily. ‘Let me know what to expect on Monday …’

  I nodded again and made my way down the stairs behind Abe.

  Abe’s car was parked around the corner: a disreputable thing, too old even to have seatbelts. I raised an eyebrow at the state of it and he shrugged.

  ‘What? You’re a witch – if there’s a crash you’ll take care of yourself.’

  ‘First of all, I don’t know the first thing about how to do any magic. And second, I thought that word wasn’t polite?’

  ‘What word – witch? Neither are a lot of the other words I use, but I don’t let it stop me.’ He opened the car door and bowed. ‘Your chariot, milady.’

  I got in. He put the car into gear with a dreadful crunch, and we set off. Given Emmaline’s dark hints about Abe’s sensitivity towards the Ealdwitan I didn’t quite know how to bring the subject up, but he introduced it quite baldly as soon as the car pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘So you wanted to talk to me about the Ealdwitan?’

  ‘Yes. Did Emmaline explain?’

  ‘She said that some old guy at your school had thrown off his false beard and fake leather elbow patches and revealed himself as spy-master general, recruiting for his dark army of minions.’

  ‘More or less. They want an answer by Monday.’

  He snorted.

  ‘Typically high-handed. And have they said what will happen if you give the wrong response?’

  ‘What is the wrong response?’

  ‘Well “no”, obviously. They’ve bothered to approach you, they must want you onside. Whether they trust you or just want you where they can see you, I’m not sure. But they obviously know something.’ He looked at me sideways in an appraising way that contained a new note of interest. ‘Any idea what they’re after?’

  ‘None!’ I said, feeling the desperation rise again. ‘Literally none! Emmaline kept asking me that – { meidtall they said was I had “a brilliant mind”.’

  ‘Hmm. Very original,’ Abe said with a twisted smile. ‘And do you? Have a brilliant mind, I mean.’

  ‘No one else seems to think so.’

  ‘Well, you must be reasonably powerful, given what you’ve accomplished without any training. But if they want brute force there’re plenty of other people out there who could supply it. What makes them so interested in you?’ He pondered the question for a moment as we waited at the traffic lights, then shrugged and seemed to dismiss it from his mind.

  ‘So what brought you to their attention?’ I asked, more as a way to divert the conversation from my less-than-brilliant mind. His face darkened and from a clear sky hail suddenly spattered the windscreen. Then he seemed to bring himself under control with an effort and the evening sun appeared again through the clouds.

  ‘Oh, usual nonsense. Betting on the weather, among other things.’

  ‘Betting on the weather?’

  ‘Mmm, you know you can bet on things like snow falling on Broadcasting House on Christmas Day – all that crap. Well, I did a series of, er, rather successful bets. Spectacularly successful, some of them were.’ He grinned wolfishly. ‘Anyway, my form was a bit too good, so the bookmakers got a little suspicious. Which brought the Ealdwitan down on me. As you may have already heard, as far as they’re concerned the first, second and third commandment is Thou Shalt Not Get Found Out. The fourth is Thou Shalt Not Draw Attention to Thyself.’

  ‘And where does Thou Shalt Not Kill come in?’ I asked, in a low voice, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.

  ‘I doubt it even makes the list,’ Abe said, looking grim.

  ‘What happened? With the Ealdwitan, I mean.’

  ‘Fine.’ Abe said. I blinked.

  ‘Sorry, you were fine?’

  ‘No, a fine. I got fined.’

  It was not the answer I’d been expecting. Somehow I’d expected the rack, or amputation of a minor extremity at least.

  ‘Huh! Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,’ I said thoughtlessly. Abe’s face went hard.

  ‘It was bad enough,’ he said coldly, and I felt the subject invisibly closed. Then he smiled, ‘So what do you think of old Sienna, Maya and Emmaline, then?’

  ‘They’re really nice. Although I’m not sure “old” is quite the word I’d use to describe them.’

  ‘No?’ He gave me a wicked sideways look. ‘How old would you say Sienna was then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I felt uncomfortably put on the spot. ‘Twenty-two? Twenty-three?’

  ‘Try thirty-five.’

  ‘No!’ I was genuinely shocked. ‘Are you joking? She can’t be.’

  ‘She’s a witch, she can do what she likes with the bloody wrinkles. C’mon, don’t tell me you won’t be giving your crows’ feet a little lift in ten years?’

  ‘How old are you then?’

  ‘Guess.’r />
  ‘Twelve,’ I said sulkily.

  ‘Very good. Just for that, Miss Cheeky, I won’t tell you. Only that I’m younger than Simon. And much younger than Maya.’

  ‘How old’s Emmaline?’

  ‘She’s seventeen, genius. School entry is based on your birth certificate, not your crows’ feet, in case you hadn’t noticed. It’s all cosmetic of course – if there’s one thing witchcraft can’t do, it’s make you immortal. Or raise the dead. So it’s all pretty bloody useless at the end of the day.’

  There was a curious bitterness in his voice, but I felt I didn’t know him well enough to probe. He turned the car up the cliff road, and I suddenly realized I had very little time left to ask him about the Ealdwitan.

  ‘Look, this isn’t what I wanted to ask you. Abe, what would you do? In my shoes, I mean?’

  We drove in silence for a while, then on the cliff top he pulled to one side and stopped.

  ‘I can’t drive and think at the same time. What would I do? Run. Run until they stopped the hunt – or they caught me.’

  I felt cold.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t run – it’s not an option.’

  ‘You’ve got legs haven’t you? Why not?’

  ‘Because.’ Lots of answers he would probably discount or think stupid. A-levels. Money. Dad. Seth. ‘Because I’m seventeen, Abe.’

  ‘I left home at seventeen,’ he said mildly. ‘I survived. Well, barring the fact I had to sell my virtue and some of my organs.’ Then, sudden { Thn,ly serious, ‘Look, Anna, the way I see it, they’ve got you in a cleft stick. They want you. They know where you are. In your shoes, I wouldn’t be wanting to say either yes or no. They aren’t very nice people to know, trust me. They make better friends than enemies, but they’re the kind of people you don’t want as either.’

  ‘Oh. So you don’t think they’ll let me walk away?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so, Anna. It depends what their agenda is. They may just want to know where you are, keep an eye on you. In which case they’ll probably accept a polite “no thanks” and an assurance that you’ll be a good girl. But without knowing what they want of you, I don’t know.’

  ‘Great,’ I said bitterly. ‘Just great. Being a witch isn’t very bloody magical so far.’

  ‘You want magic?’ He smiled at me in the darkening car. I shrugged. Then I shivered – the balmy June night had grown almost chilly.

  ‘Are you cold?’ I asked. Abe said nothing, only continued to smile. I frowned, waiting for him to say something, then I realized the car was really cold.

  I looked around and gasped.

  The most beautiful frost flowers were creeping across the windows, starting from the corners of the windscreen and spreading, fern-like, across the glass. As I sat, holding my breath, Abe painted the car with patterns so exquisite I could only sit and marvel, forgetting my cold fingers, forgetting the Ealdwitan, forgetting everything. Finally, we were in a white cave, each glass panel etched with patterns so lovely I hardly dared exhale for fear of melting them.

  Then Abe let his breath go and warm air flooded through the car. Condensation formed on the glass, then little runnels of water, and within minutes the windows were clear, the car just an ordinary piece of junk again.

  ‘Abe,’ I whispered, ‘how did you do that? It was so beautiful.’

  ‘So useless, you mean.’ He smiled and turned the key in the engine. ‘We’d better get you home.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Monday morning. Double whammy. Maths – where I would probably see Seth for the first time in a week. And after that History – with Mr Brereton.

  But when I got to Maths, Seth’s side of the desk was still empty. I sat down with a strange feeling of mingled relief and regret.

  Mr Henderson began ticking off the register while we got out our homework, his eyes darting from student to student as he ran down the list. At last he closed the file and asked, ‘Can anyone enlighten me as to Seth Water’s whereabouts? Is he still off sick?’

  ‘Nope,’ said a voice from the doorway, ‘just late. Sorry, Mr Henderson.’

  And Seth walked into the room.

  My pulse speeded up to a sickening race as he sat down beside me. He looked thinner, paler, but it suited him. Even sick, he looked better than every other guy in the room. I watched him hungrily as Mr Henderson ran through the homework questions. Then, as Mr Henderson turned towards the board, Seth looked at me and smiled. My heart flipped over – and he leaned towards me, twined his hand in my hair, and kissed me, hard and fierce.

  There was a gasp from the rest of the class and I yanked away, my cheeks flaming. Just in time, as Mr Henderson turned back to the class, frowning crossly at the interruption.

  ‘Is there something someone would like to share with us?’ His eyes swept the room, stopping at our desk, where he took in my furious scarlet blush and Seth’s open, grinning delight. ‘Anna, Seth? Something to contribute?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Henderson, just something I wanted to give Anna.’ Seth’s grin was wide and infectious, and so good-natured that Mr Henderson just sighed and turned back to his problem.

  Seth said nothing for the rest of the hour, but every bone exuded his triumph. At the end of class I turned to him furiously.

  ‘If you ever do that again, Seth Waters, I will do more than enchant you,’ I hissed under my breath. ‘I’ll make you regret you were ever born.’

  ‘Go on, don’t stop. You’re even more beautiful when you’re angry,’ he said teasingly.

  ‘I mean it,’ I said severely, fighting to maintain my crossness. ‘I’ll – I’ll turn you into a frog.’

  ‘I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.’ He grinned. ‘The kiss transforms the frog into the handsome prince. But feel free to practise, I like the way your other spells have turned out so far.’

  ‘Seth, please. I’m not joking. I’m not a safe person for you to be around, you know that. What happened – that night, last week – it didn’t change anything.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed defiantly. ‘It didn’t change anything. You can talk all you like, Anna, but we both know how you feel and how I feel. And you’re right. That’s not going to change.’

  Damn him. I swung round and stalked away. The last thing I heard was his mocking voice following me down the corridor.

  ‘You’ve still got to see me in History …’

  Oh God, Mr Brereton. For once I had more on my mind than just Seth. It should have been a relief to be worrying about somyinn="ething else, but it wasn’t.

  The lesson passed in a grim blur of dread and stumbling answers, until at last the bell went with teeth-jarring abruptness. Mr Brereton dismissed the class and then added, as if as an afterthought, ‘Oh, Anna, there was something you wanted to discuss I think. The rest of you may go.’

  I waited submissively by my desk as the rest of the class filed out, my stomach churning and turning, still not certain what I was going to tell him. Because in spite of what Maya, Emmaline and Abe had told me, the lure of the Ealdwitan’s offer was tempting. Knowledge. Guidance. And surely, surely with all that power, they would be able to put right what had gone wrong with Seth?

  Wasn’t it possible that the Ealdwitan weren’t as bad as they’d been painted? I only had the Pellers’ side of the picture, and even though I liked and trusted Maya, I wasn’t naïve enough to accept her word completely without question.

  But there was something about Mr Brereton’s smooth, ultra-reassuring manner that freaked me out. Why was he so eager to persuade me? What did he want? I had the strong feeling of being backed into a corner – and it brought out every ounce of stubbornness in my character.

  Now he softly closed the classroom door, smiling his terrifying, cosy smile, and something inside me clicked into place. In that instant, I knew what I was going to say. I just didn’t know what would happen next.

  ‘There. Now we can chat, uninterrupted. Not
that we don’t have ways of securing privacy from the outwith, but the simplest methods are usually the best, I find. How are you my dear? Did you enjoy the discussion today? Henry VIII is such a fascinating subject, I always think.’

  The charade made me feel sick.

  ‘If we can’t be overheard, Mr Brereton, please, let’s drop all the pretence.’

  ‘Very well. My, my, like most of the young these days you are distressingly abrupt. What is your answer then, my dear?’

  I swallowed. Was I about to make the second biggest mistake of my life? Of Seth’s life? I felt something biting into my palms, and realized that my hands were clenched so hard that my fingernails were cutting my skin.

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s no.’ I said. Mr Brereton inclined his head and I felt compelled to add, ‘Thank you.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Well, my dear, I won’t pretend that my friends won’t be disappointed. They have great admiration for your talents and were looking forward to helping you control and explore them. But of course we respect your decision.’

  I blinked. This seemed almost too easy.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘But of course! We have no use for unwilling students.

  However, in view of the somewhat, well, unfortunate consequences that have attended your previous experiments, my friends have a little advice.’

  I waited.

  ‘They merely ask – or perhaps that’s too strong a word – let’s say they merely suggest that if you prefer to keep a lone path, that you do not interfere with the outwith, you do not practise magic upon them, and you keep secret your talents from them. We all have a responsibility to safeguard our community, and equally to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Does this seem reasonable?’

  ‘More than reasonable!’ I said with heartfelt relief. I never wanted to cast another spell on another ordinary person ever again. Seth had certainly cured me of that.

  ‘You absolutely undertake not to cast a spell on, or to do any magic in the presence of, an outwith then? You do understand what I mean by this term, by the way?’

  Frankly, I would have promised not to cast any spell, ever again, ever. Agreeing not to interfere with ordinary people seemed like mere common sense.